Did your parents get you into gaming?

[rebarton2]

I voted no, although, like Wombat, some explanation is necessary.

My parents bought me the blue box at my request. My dad liked Avalon Hill wargames (although he rarely had time to play them), and I think they thought of this new game (D&D) as a sort of imaginary wargame.

But after I fell hook, line and sinker into D&D, my parents began to discourage it since they wanted me 'well-rounded'.

 

[Jaws]

No, but my Mom bought me the Red Box without even me asking for it. Wasn't even close to my birthday or christmas or anything. My mom was cool.


j.

 

[drothgery]

I voted no, though my father's stacks of sci-fi novels and love of Star Trek certainly got me into sci-fi and fantasy, and he certainly encouraged my interest in computers which sent me to an engineering college -- and that's where I met my first regular gaming group.

 

[ivocaliban]

I was raised by baptists and catholics. Looking back I'm surprised I made it through the front door with the box.

In other words: No. I'm fairly certain I was the first in my family to play the game with any regularity.

 

[Glyfair]

So, yeah, my parents got me into RPGs, but not by being RPGamers.

Well, it's probably too late to influence anyone's vote, but as far as I'm concerned if you got into D&D because you had a parent who was any sort of hobby gamer (wargamer, CCG gamer) then you count for the purposes of this poll. H.G. Wells counts, so generations could theoretically go back quite far.

Effectively I was asking who was a 2nd generation (or later) hobby gamer. So, if your parents encouraged you to play D&D, but didn't play some similiar game, that doesn't cuunt.

 

[rgard]

My parents didn't get me into the hobby. In fact they didn't want me to be into in my late high school years. For a while they took away some of gaming supplies. I knew this was going to happen so I hid some of my other books. Plus, when my dad found one of my hidden dungeon magazine he tore it in half right before my eyes.

Nowadays, they are cool with me being a gamer and support my decision. In fact, they are helping to finance my GenCon trip this year (hotel and airfare only).

EDIT: My nephew recently turned one year old and I'm hoping to mold him into a second generation gamer.

That's nuthin'! My dad tore phone books in half!!!

Sorry, seriously, my parents were ambivalent about me playing D&D. My mother did pick up a couple of Dragon mags for me. Still have them...issues 12 and 14 I think.

Thanks,
Rich

 

[rgard]

No but I hope someday my three boys will answer a similar poll yes

You'll get there. My 3 can already answer yes!

 

[Castellan]

Yes.

It was 1980. My father had been to a games store in Indianapolis, where we were living at the time. He came home with this very cool-looking box and said, "How would you like to be a fighting man and defeat dragons?" I was 7. That was the coolest thing I had ever heard.

My dad took two weeks to read through the basic D&D manual, scan through the Keep on the Borderlands, and then to draw up a small dungeon and help my mom and me to create characters to play a game.

It was one of the coolest experiences I ever had and we've been a gaming family in one way or another ever since.

 

[rgard]

<snip> (As a semi-interesting post-script, said priest later got a sex change, married a man who used to be a woman, and moved out of state.) <snip>

Yikes!

 

[Farcaster]

It was actually my step-father who introduced me to roleplaying games back when I was 12. He thought that since I enjoyed the Bards Tale and Might and Magic type computer games so much (on my Commodore 64, baby...) that I might like RPGs as well. Uncharacteristically, I took his advice and tried them out. 18 years later, here I am, still playing.